The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) payload includes the Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) instrument, intended to fully characterize the radiation environment for the MSL mission. The RAD instrument operations concept is intended to reduce impact to spacecraft resources and effort for the MSL operations team. By design, RAD autonomously performs regular science observations without the need for frequent commanding from the Rover Compute Element (RCE). RAD operates with pre-defined "sleep" and "observe" periods, with an adjustable duty cycle for meeting power and data volume constraints during the mission. At the start of a new science observation, RAD performs a pre-observation activity to assess count rates for selected RAD detector elements. Based on this assessment, RAD can enter "solar event" mode, in which instrument parameters (including observation duration) are selected to more effectively characterize the environment. At the end of each observation period, RAD stores a time-tagged, fixed length science data packet in its non-volatile mass memory storage. The operating cadence is defined by adjustable parameters, also stored in non-volatile memory within the instrument. Periodically, the RCE executes an on-board sequence to transfer RAD science data packets from the instrument mass storage to the MSL downlink buffer. Infrequently, the RAD instrument operating configuration is modified by updating internal parameter tables and configuration entries.
MSL-RAD Cruise Operations Concept
AIAA Space Conference ; 2012 ; Pasadena, CA, United States
2012-09-11
Conference paper
No indication
English
MSL-RAD Cruise Operations Concept
AIAA | 2012
|MSL-RAD Cruise Operations Concept
NTRS | 2012
|MSL-RAD CRUISE OPERATIONS CONCEPT
British Library Conference Proceedings | 2012
|Cruise operations management : hospitality perspectives
TIBKAT | 2012
|SPECIAL FEATURES - Cruise liner update - New concept for 'safest cruise liner'
Online Contents | 2000